How to Run a Command on Startup on Linux

I recently purchased a VPS to run my IRC client in. I wanted to start my IRC client in tmux on startup. The answer is simple: crontabs.

Run the following command on the user you want to run the command on:

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crontab -e

This will open up the crontab of your current user. A crontab is basically a file stating a bunch of tasks that you want to run on some sort of schedule.

Next, add the following text to the file:

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@reboot <command>

where <command> is, of course, the command you want to run. For example, on boot, I run a shell script that starts up my tmux stuff, so I have @reboot /usr/ian/tmux_start.sh.

Pretty simple, right? Crontabs have a lot more uses that you can probably find on Google.

Source: man cron and man crontab.